Analyte concentration determination in physiological fluids (e.g., a test fluid such as blood or blood derived products such as plasma) is of ever increasing importance to today's society. Such assays find use in a variety of applications and settings, including clinical laboratory testing, home testing, etc., where the results of such testing play a prominent role in the diagnosis and management of a variety of disease conditions. Analytes of interest include glucose for diabetes management, cholesterol for monitoring cardiovascular conditions, and the like.
A common method for analyte concentration determination assays is based on electrochemistry. In such methods, an aqueous liquid sample is placed into a sample reaction chamber in an electrochemical cell made up of at least two electrodes, i.e., a reference and working electrode, where the electrodes have an impedance which renders them suitable for amperometric or coulometric measurement. The component to be analyzed is allowed to react directly with an electrode, or directly or indirectly with a reagent to form an oxidizable (or reducible) substance in an amount corresponding to the concentration of the component to be analyzed, i.e., analyte. The quantity of the oxidizable (or reducible) substance present is then estimated electrochemically and related to the amount of analyte present in the initial sample.
An automated device, e.g., an electrochemical test meter is typically employed for determining the concentration of the analyte in the sample. Many test meters advantageously allow for an analyte concentration, and usually a plurality of analyte concentrations, to be stored in the memory of the meter. This feature provides the user with the ability to review analyte concentration levels over a period of time, often times as an average of previously collected analyte levels, where such averaging is performed according to an algorithm associated with the meter. However, to ensure that the system is functioning properly, the user will occasionally perform test using a control fluid instead of blood sample. Such control fluids (also referred to as control solutions) are generally aqueous solutions having a known concentration of glucose. The user can perform a test with the control solution and compare the displayed results with the known concentration to determine if the system is functioning properly. However, once the control solution test is performed, the glucose concentration level of the control fluid is stored in the memory of the meter. Thus, when a user seeks to review previous tests and/or the average concentration of previous test results, the results may be skewed to the concentration of the control fluid analyte level.
Thus, it is desirable to be able to distinguish control solutions and sample fluids during a test. One option is to manually flag the fluids as either control or test fluids. However automatic flagging would be preferable since it minimizes user interaction and increases ease-of-use.
As such, there is continued interest in the development of new methods and devices for use in the determination of analyte concentrations in a sample. Of particular interest would be the development of such methods and devices that include the ability to automatically flag a sample as control fluid or test fluid and to store or exclude measurements accordingly. Of particular interest would be the development of such methods that are suitable for use with electrochemical based analyte concentration determination assays.